A Harry Potter Christmas Carol
by VegetandAru
Summary: To get me into the Christmas spirit I give to you Dickens' A Christmas Carol as told by Severus Snape. Please read, only going to be five chapters long. V. fluffy


_A Harry Potter Christmas Carol_

Lucius Malfoy was dead as a doornail. It was Christmas eve, seven years to the day since Mr Malfoy, partner in the firm Snape and Malfoy, died.

Severus Snape stalked through the snow that lay thick all about. The wind howled, the ice was slippy and the sounds of cheer and good will filled the cold London streets. As he walked by, street vendors called out 'Merry Christmas' even if he'd taken no interest in their wares. Without turning, he replied 'Bah! Humbug!' and carried resolutely on.

As he approached the counting house of 'Snape and Malfoy 'with it's plaque all covered in ice, seemingly from nowhere sprung his nephew a young man by the name of Fred.

His cheeks were as ruddy and red as his hair in the cold and he bustled over and threw his arms wide in delight.

"Merry Christmas Uncle."

"Bah. Humbug." Ignoring this exuberant display, he shoved his nephew out the way and opened the door to step inside, before he could close it again, Fred slipped indoors.

"I just came to wish you a merry Christmas and ask if you would come for supper tonight? We have a wonderful spread ready Uncle!" as determined as a dog, Fred trotted in behind Snape who pulled off his hat and scarf and sunk into a chair before a desk in a room lit with a fireplace: but even that seemed cold.

A room leading off this office was dark and cold and held only a bookshelf and a frail looking desk with a frail looking man behind it.

Snape opened a door and took out a purse, the contents of which he tipped into a pile on his desk and began to count. "Did I come to dinner last year?"

For the first time Fred's smile faltered. "Well, no."

"How about the year before that?"

"No uncle."

"And the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that? No. So _what_ gave you the ridiculous idea that I would come this year?" He made his first neat little pile of coins and pushed the to the left hand side of the desk without sparing his nephew a glance.

With something that might have been bravery, or equally foolery, but which had a good deal of resolution nonetheless, Fred steeled himself and said.

"No uncle, you never come but I will ask you for as long as you are here to ask. It's Christmas."

"Christmas is a fraud."

"Well if you won't come that's your choice but my offer still stands and we would _like_ you to come. Even if you don't, expect to see me next year uncle." he docked his hat and inclined his head. "Merry Christmas."

"Bah! Humbug!" was the retort that followed Fred out the room and out the house.

After Fred left, his joviality leaving with him, the counting house fell silent and in his little room with his books and desk, Mr Lupin, Mr Snape's Clerk, sat and shivered as he worked. Though the time passed, neither spoke and when the knocking on the door run through the counting house Lupin was glad for the distraction.

The tired looking man jumped from his seat to open the door and quickly admitted two middle-aged gentlemen into the room where Snape, now with several more little piles of money, sat counting.

"Sir? There are two gents here to see you." His work done, Lupin scurried back to his room and leant back in his chair when he thought no one was watching until he could see the interlude in the next room.

Both men had dark, one long one scruffy, the long haired man had eyes of blue and a handsome smile, the other man wore glasses and scraped a gloved hand back through his hair.

"Good evening, do we have the pleasure of addressing Mr Snape or Mr Malfoy?"

"My Malfoy died seven years past. Who are you, what do you want?" The two men exchanged looks and the one with long hair stuck a collecting tin under Snape's overly large nose, the miserly man recoiled as though burnt and sneered down at the little rattling tin.

"You're collecting for charity." he stated flatly and both the men stranding before his desk nodded and grinned.

"I'm sure you can spare some- we're collecting donations for the poor at Christmas sir." the messy haired one reasoned to a contemptuous look.

"No, no, no." Mr Snape stood and braced his hands on the desk in front of him, his clerk expected that this was only in order to bring himself further away from the hated collecting tin. "I pay my taxes gentlemen, those are sufficient enough to help sustain the work houses. If they need help let them go there."

"Most of them would rather die than go there!" The long haired man growled slamming the collection tin down onto the tabletop. It upset the pillars of pennies and Snape sighed and reseated himself delicately, unconcerned by the furious man in front of him.

With one long fingered hand he scooped the toppled piles of money towards him and began again, his focus solely on the glinting coins.

"If they would rather die... they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Good day Gentlemen. I trust you can see yourself out." The long haired man looked just about ready to lunge at Mr Snape were it not for his scruffy haired friends hand on his shoulder holding him back, though he was scowling down at Snape just as profusely.

As Mr Lupin heard the enraged slam of a front door he took this as his cue to stand and, ringing his hands with nerves, approached his close-fisted employer. He placed both thin hands behind his back in a gesture of respect and bowed his head forwards.

"Mr Snape sir, I was wondering if I might have tomorrow off?"

"Whatever for man?" the proprietor murmured distractedly.

"It's Christmas sir, I wanted to spend the day with my family, it does only come once a year after all sir." The dark haired man sitting at his desk gave a 'harumph' and no other answer to Remus Lupin pressed on.

"My son's not very well sir, we're not sure how many Christmases he has left... please sir, I only ask for one day." Looking up for the first time since the conversation started, Snape leant back in his chair and gave his clerk a withering glance, rubbing the brink of his nose between thumb and forefinger in a gesture meant to reduce stress.

"I will let you have tomorrow off Mr Lupin on the condition that you arrive her all the earlier the next day to catch up on work missed." He grudgingly agreed.

With a bright smile Lupin reached for his hat and gloves and pulling them on said obligingly, "Yes Mr Snape sir, of course. And a Me-" the glare he was thrown -oh! if looks could kill- he cut himself off quickly. "Err- goodnight sir."

The miserable man returned to his counting and his grey haired clerk left with a muffled closing of the front door: home for the holidays.

When Snape left the counting house it was dark outside already, but he felt he had accomplished much business work that evening and would have been tempted to smile on his way home if it was not for a chorus of carol singers intent on ruining his evening as he left the building and stalked to his horse and coach.

He sneered at them until a young girl squealed mid song and shoved through their midst gathered outside his door. His boots squelched in the sludge of dirty snow and left a mess over the floor of the coach as he climbed in, but at least it was warm and taking him home, away from those abysmal carollers.

It left him at his front gate as it always did and he jumped down and watched it trundle quickly away. he began up the drive to the front door of the manor that once belonged to Lucius Malfoy.

Severus Snape lived in a small suite of largely unfurnished rooms where he did not light candles or fires, even on the darkest and coldest winter days, because 'darkness is cheap'. Or so he reasoned.

The rest of the rooms he rented as offices to men who were able to pay high rates for the large rooms and secluded area. None of them were here now, all gone for Christmas: no doubt.

He crunched over stone, the night dark and thick around him and the wind cold and lip chapping as he approached the door and reached for the lion head door knocker.

Before his eyes it changed and morphed and he flung himself backwards from it as the face of Lucius Malfoy, immortalised is bras, stared back at him. As quickly as it came it seemed to melt away again and Snape reached out a shaking hand for the knocked, fumbling with it to make sure it was there, it was real and that it _was_, without a doubt, in the shape of a lion.

This established he shook his head to dislodge the cobwebs of tiredness and pushed open the heavy wooden door. The door opened into an empty hall and boomed shut behind him. Dust clung to the hand rail that followed the curve of the staircase to Severus Snape's chambers.

As he climbed each creaking step he felt a whoosh of air against the back of his neck, his hair stood on end and the grim grip of fear began in his gut. He edged around to peer behind him and screamed and dropped downwards when- like a fright train streaming away from the devil himself- four black horses, foaming at the mouth and showing only the whites of their dreadful eyes charged up the stairs before him, dragging in their wake a black locomotive hearse.

As the horses scream died away, Snape sat panting on the step, two trembling arms shielding his head from the phantom coach and horses that had passed straight through him only minutes before. When he felt he'd regained enough strength in his wobbling legs to walk again he half ran half fell up the winding stairs and collapsed against his bedroom door, tumbling in and tearing off his winter clothes.

As he dressed in greying night clothes, and pulled on a worn dressing gown he persuaded himself that he was tired and it was dark and his mind was playing tricks on him.

Repeating this to himself he pulled a stool before the empty fire grate and pulled a bowl of cold gruel, left on the counter by the house-mistress before she'd retired for the night, towards him. In the quiet of the night, with his mind still on these horrible things, the mantelpiece carvings warped and changed, as easily as the door-knocker had done until a row of faces, all those of his dead friend Malfoy stared grimly back at Snape. He threw the bowl at them in anger and the carvings changed back to normal, albeit, spattered in gruel.

As the wooden bowl and spoon hid the ground with a heavy thunk, every chime and clock and bell in the house began in an instant to ring more loudly than he'd ever heard them before then, stopped.

Somewhere downstairs, past the offices and the entrance hall, down, down into the deep of the cold and musty cellar an insistent clang... clang... clang... echoed up the stairways, along the corridor, growing louder, and louder and paused as though the whole world was holding its breath outside Snape's bedroom door.

The door never opened but a figure passed through the wood with a deep and dark blue hue and sad soulless eyes peered out at Snape from the sunken face of the once Lucius Malfoy.

The proud shoulders: hunched and low, the feet shuffled and the hands gripped chains which wrapped around the slender figures waist to pull them behind him into the room in an act that made ghostly fingers bleed from gruelling work in a way they had never done in life.

Snape jumped upwards and forwards to help his friend but his hands passed through the chains and he stumbled through the man and landed, hands and knees, on the cold wood floor.

"I'm dead Severus. You can't help me now." the apparition scolded.

"Lucius, Lucius, how are you here, what is going on? Oh Lucius? Is this because of what I did with your estate? I did what I thought best, what I thought you would want. I did, I did. Why do you haunt me?" he peered up at his friend through cold eyes and the spectre gave him a sad and sorry look.

"No Severus. I am here to warn you." He gave the chains a fruitless tug. "My fate is to walk the earth in penitence for I showed no concern for others when I was alive. This chain," he gave it another hard wrench and it rattled but never echoed and Severus noticed for the first time the keys and money boxes and ledgers -all things that filled Snape's life with the firm- all things that filled Snape's _life_!- were attached to the heavy metal links. "Represents all my sins in life Severus and I curse it!" he spat furiously. "And your fate may be worse yet than mine."

"How!"

"Seven years ago our chains were both thick and heavy, but I died and four seven years you have been adding with yours with your selfish life. But I'm telling you, this does not need be your fate. You will be visited by three spirits this night, expect the first when the first stroke chimes." Almost like a hand had grabbed the chains and pulled, Malfoy was wrenched from the room, his warning echoing in Snape's ears as an unknown force slammed the bedroom door closed.

He bounded up and threw it wide again, peering into a darkness where nothing was there. No malfoy. No chains.

"I need rest. I work too hard... getting too old. My eyes play tricks on me and I dream whilst awake. I need rest." he stumbled like a drunkard to his bed and collapsed atop its sheets.

"I hallucinate... A good nights sleep will make it well again... I'll live my life how I will." he mumbled into the pillows as he forced his eyes to rest and sleep quickly took him

- - - - -

Merry Christmas everyone and Bah! Humbug! to you all! I woke up this morning having caught the flu from the rest of my family and feeling horrible. Well this gave me time to watch A Christmas Carol rather than doing any real work and _tada! _I decided to do my very own version of the tale.

There will be five chapters in the same way that Dickens had five staves. So... enjoy!


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